Long pause between POST and Loading screen!

the_slayer · 02-08-2008, 05:49 AM

Hi everyone!

I have been trying to troubleshoot this 1 for a while now and it has really got me stressed!

Symptom:
I sometimes get a long pause (30sec - over a minute) between the POST screen and the Windows Loading screen. The screen is black but is still on. There doesnt seem to be any activity from the HD at this time as far as i have noticed. This is real intermittent and i cant tell when its going to happen or make it happen. Can happen after a reboot or on a cold boot. it has happened with XP and VISTA Home Premium (both 32-bit).

Tested so far:
I have had the pc in a pc shop where they did a stress test, memtest, vid card text, HD test... they did this over night and did not receive any errors. so that is about 98% sure that its not a hardware fault. while i had it at their shop it did not display the problem!

to be safe i changed my SATA cables and i removed the front panel connectors (USB/1394/audio) connectors form the board.

i have also tried formatting and installing drivers from the asus website and also doing a format and installing drivers from the relevant manufacturers websites.

pc specs:
Asus P5K-VM
Core2Duo 2.66gig e6750
160Gig HD (SATA - western digital)
OCZ DDR2 2x1gig 800mhz (timings - 4-4-4-15 2.1V reommended manu)
Gainward 512MB 8600GT
DVD burner (SATA)

any ideas?

**Lead3** · 02-08-2008, 11:30 AM

I have seen this type of thing when the system is looking for IDE drives and there are none. There should be a BIOS setting that changes the wait time.

the_slayer · 02-08-2008, 05:33 PM

and can it be intermittent?

a setting to change how long the BIOS looks for a device?

**Doby** · 02-08-2008, 07:38 PM

Lead has given you a very good point and I have seen this behaivor to, yes there is a setting on the main tab in bios under IDE configuration. Look for "sata detect time out"
This sets the timeout value for detecting ata/atapi devices

the_slayer · 02-09-2008, 12:14 AM

hi...

okay i checked those things...

SATA configuration is set to "Enhanced"
Configure SATA as is set to "IDE"

now mine says IDE detect timeout and is set to 15seconds... i dont have anything plugged into the IDE.

also under the HD setting for SMART it is set to auto...

Vandal63 · 02-09-2008, 10:01 AM

I will let you know if anybody can help me out. Your link should give me a good starting point as well. Thanks

POST and Windows Hang

**Doby** · 02-09-2008, 05:43 PM

Set the IDE detect timeout to zero, leave all the others as is

the_slayer · 02-09-2008, 06:37 PM

ok... i will give that a go...

but seeing as it was set to 15 seconds and i would get a pause of over a minute... doesnt that mean it would be searching more than once anyways... if thats what was happening?

**Doby** · 02-09-2008, 09:26 PM

From what I have seen I can only guess its some sorta bug in bios that it hangs when there is no ide drive present

Vandal63 · 02-10-2008, 06:17 PM

I do have a DVD Burner attached to my IDE. Still Hangs. It seems to help when I move the jumper on the CMOS to reset and pull the power plug from the back for a few secs. It will at least let me in to windows then. Next time I reset it still seems to hang though.

**Doby** · 02-10-2008, 06:38 PM

Do you have the jumper on the dvd drive set to master and the drive installed on the end of the ide cable?

Vandal63 · 02-10-2008, 09:40 PM

I do have that done. I think I fixed mine though. At least with my motherboard some of the EVGA forums said you just need to FLASH/and update to the latest BIOS for your board. Mine is the eVGA 680i LT SLI. I did so and all appears to be working great. Many resets later it is still doing just fine. I think I got mine tackled. You might give it a try check you manufacturers web site a BIOS update. Lemme know if you need any help. Good Luck.

Vandal63

the_slayer · 02-10-2008, 11:22 PM

im not using the IDE connector on mine... and i have the latest BIOS... i have read of some others with my mobo having the same issue...

good to hear you got it sorted though :)

the_slayer · 02-12-2008, 11:23 PM

okay... well i tried the IDE time thing... set it to 0 and that didnt make any difference... i had it happen again the other day after making a change to the registry (disabled IPv6) and then on reboot it happened again... i even had the bootlog on this time but to my dissappointment it told me nothing... same log as it always records...

someone else suggested my PSU might be the cause???

quote:

My guess would be the power supply.

I didn't find the FSP 500W Blue Storm specs to be overly impressive. 15A MAX on the +12v1 and +12v2 rails. If the power supply is wired to ATX specs the +12v2 should be dedicated to the processor which would only leave the +12v1 @ 15A max to supply all the other +12v needs.

http://www.fspgroupusa.com/PC_RETAIL/AX500A/AX500A.html

the_slayer · 02-14-2008, 04:07 PM

now i dont actually use RAID and i only have 1 HD but it has been suggested to me that my issue could be that i dont load any drivers in the beginning where in XP you have the option to hit F6 and in Vista when creating the partitions there is a "load driver" button...

could this be the case? all though the asus website doesnt actually have a driver for HD operation...?

craigwatanabe · 02-14-2008, 04:59 PM

I recently completed a repair on a computer with similar problems, very intermittant.

The culprit was a defective zip drive (yeah old tech). The BIOS would detect it and it would occasionally boot to the desktop but then sometimes it wouldn't. Same as you it would hang between POST and the Windows welcome screen.

As others have suggested your BIOS is looking for IDE and SATA drives. If any of your drives are defective it will hang like that.

In your case unplug all drives except the hard drive, enter the BIOS set up and deselect "Enable Floppy boot up" and set the first Boot device to HDD. Also disable anything that says, "enable any other boot device".

This forces the BIOS to detect the HDD first and nothing else. With all other drives unplugged reboot the system and see if it boots up. Sometimes some BIOS' will detect a boot configuration change and will ask you to enter the Setup menu. Just enter it and save and exit and reboot.

If this works you have a faulty optical or floppy drive or possibly a defective IDE ribbon cable. These cables do go bad after a period of time and on every rebuild or repair I always replace them with new ones as bad cables can cause the BIOS to react differently.

the_slayer · 02-14-2008, 08:38 PM

hmmm...

well the first time i went to install Vista i booted from the cd and towards the end of the grey bar it came up with an error 0xc00000e9 and said something about possible fault with I/O device such as usb or optical...

im pretty sure its not the SATA cables (no IDE) as i have already tried replacing them and still had the issue... could anything go wrong with the power cable from the PSU that is plugged into say my dvd drive that could cause this kind of issue?

all usb stuff is disconnected... its not that...

the dvd drive is a possibility... but the problem is it can go for like a week without showing the problem! how do i tell the place i got it there is a problem and then they check it and it works fine? if thats what it is of course...

note most of the time it happens is after system file changes... eg. when i modified the registry (disabling IPv6)... or when installing some drivers... so could this still make the DVD drive not get found correctly on start???

the_slayer · 02-17-2008, 12:45 AM

most of the time it happens is after system file changes... eg. when i modified the registry (disabling IPv6)... or when installing some drivers... so could this still make the DVD drive not get found correctly on start???

the_slayer · 03-05-2008, 04:45 PM

hi... well i still havent been able to figure this out... tried a few things but it still happens occasinally...

it just did it to me then and in the Event Viewer other then under "information" there is 1 instance under "Warning" and 2 instances under "Audit Failure".

I will list the details below... does this mean anything to anyone and could reflect the problem im having?

WARNING:
Windows Defender Real-Time Protection agent has detected changes. Microsoft recommends you analyze the software that made these changes for potential risks. You can use information about how these programs operate to choose whether to allow them to run or remove them from your computer. Allow changes only if you trust the program or the software publisher. Windows Defender can't undo changes that you allow.
For more information please see the following:
Not Applicable
Scan ID: {366BB672-0B1B-46D3-9168-3E7F7E80E661}
User: aaron-PC\aaron
Name: Unknown
ID:
Severity ID:
Category ID:
Path Found: regkey:HKCU@S-1-5-21-3470190438-1243519147-2628577789-1000\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt\Add to Anti-Banner;iemenuext:HKCU@S-1-5-21-3470190438-1243519147-2628577789-1000\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt\Add to Anti-Banner;file:C:\Program Files\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0\ie_banner_deny.htm
Alert Type: Unclassified software
Detection Type:

AUDIT FAILURE:

1.
Code integrity determined that the image hash of a file is not valid. The file could be corrupt due to unauthorized modification or the invalid hash could indicate a potential disk device error.

File Name: \Device\HarddiskVolume1\PROGRA~1\KASPER~2\KASPER~1.0\adialhk.dll

2.
Code integrity determined that the image hash of a file is not valid. The file could be corrupt due to unauthorized modification or the invalid hash could indicate a potential disk device error.

File Name: \Device\HarddiskVolume1\PROGRA~1\KASPER~2\KASPER~1.0\r3hook.dll

craigwatanabe · 03-10-2008, 02:51 PM

Sounds like a defective DVD-ROM drive. My wife just got a Lenovo Think Centre desktop for work and her DVD-RAM drive was defective right out of the box.

02-08-2008, 05:49 AM	#1 (permalink)
the_slayer Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 28 OS: Vista	Long pause between POST and Loading screen! Hi everyone! I have been trying to troubleshoot this 1 for a while now and it has really got me stressed! Symptom: I sometimes get a long pause (30sec - over a minute) between the POST screen and the Windows Loading screen. The screen is black but is still on. There doesnt seem to be any activity from the HD at this time as far as i have noticed. This is real intermittent and i cant tell when its going to happen or make it happen. Can happen after a reboot or on a cold boot. it has happened with XP and VISTA Home Premium (both 32-bit). Tested so far: I have had the pc in a pc shop where they did a stress test, memtest, vid card text, HD test... they did this over night and did not receive any errors. so that is about 98% sure that its not a hardware fault. while i had it at their shop it did not display the problem! to be safe i changed my SATA cables and i removed the front panel connectors (USB/1394/audio) connectors form the board. i have also tried formatting and installing drivers from the asus website and also doing a format and installing drivers from the relevant manufacturers websites. pc specs: Asus P5K-VM Core2Duo 2.66gig e6750 160Gig HD (SATA - western digital) OCZ DDR2 2x1gig 800mhz (timings - 4-4-4-15 2.1V reommended manu) Gainward 512MB 8600GT DVD burner (SATA) any ideas?

02-08-2008, 11:30 AM	#2 (permalink)
Lead3 Mentor Hardware Team Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Florida, USA Posts: 1,374 OS: 98SE,2000,XP SP3,VISTA SP2 x64 & x86, Windows 7 x64 & x86 My System	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! I have seen this type of thing when the system is looking for IDE drives and there are none. There should be a BIOS setting that changes the wait time. __________________

02-08-2008, 05:33 PM	#3 (permalink)
the_slayer Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 28 OS: Vista	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! and can it be intermittent? a setting to change how long the BIOS looks for a device?

02-08-2008, 07:38 PM	#4 (permalink)
Doby Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Central PA (USA) Posts: 8,056 OS: XP sp2/ Vista My System	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! Lead has given you a very good point and I have seen this behaivor to, yes there is a setting on the main tab in bios under IDE configuration. Look for "sata detect time out" This sets the timeout value for detecting ata/atapi devices __________________ Would you like to help TSF fight cancer and other diseases??? JOIN TEAM TSF

02-09-2008, 12:14 AM	#5 (permalink)
the_slayer Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 28 OS: Vista	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! hi... okay i checked those things... SATA configuration is set to "Enhanced" Configure SATA as is set to "IDE" now mine says IDE detect timeout and is set to 15seconds... i dont have anything plugged into the IDE. also under the HD setting for SMART it is set to auto...

02-09-2008, 10:01 AM	#6 (permalink)
Vandal63 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Salem, OR Posts: 39 OS: Windows Vista 32	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! I will let you know if anybody can help me out. Your link should give me a good starting point as well. Thanks POST and Windows Hang

02-09-2008, 05:43 PM	#7 (permalink)
Doby Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Central PA (USA) Posts: 8,056 OS: XP sp2/ Vista My System	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! Set the IDE detect timeout to zero, leave all the others as is __________________ Would you like to help TSF fight cancer and other diseases??? JOIN TEAM TSF

02-09-2008, 06:37 PM	#8 (permalink)
the_slayer Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 28 OS: Vista	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! ok... i will give that a go... but seeing as it was set to 15 seconds and i would get a pause of over a minute... doesnt that mean it would be searching more than once anyways... if thats what was happening?

02-09-2008, 09:26 PM	#9 (permalink)
Doby Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Central PA (USA) Posts: 8,056 OS: XP sp2/ Vista My System	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! From what I have seen I can only guess its some sorta bug in bios that it hangs when there is no ide drive present __________________ Would you like to help TSF fight cancer and other diseases??? JOIN TEAM TSF

02-10-2008, 06:17 PM	#10 (permalink)
Vandal63 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Salem, OR Posts: 39 OS: Windows Vista 32	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! I do have a DVD Burner attached to my IDE. Still Hangs. It seems to help when I move the jumper on the CMOS to reset and pull the power plug from the back for a few secs. It will at least let me in to windows then. Next time I reset it still seems to hang though.

02-10-2008, 06:38 PM	#11 (permalink)
Doby Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Central PA (USA) Posts: 8,056 OS: XP sp2/ Vista My System	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! Do you have the jumper on the dvd drive set to master and the drive installed on the end of the ide cable? __________________ Would you like to help TSF fight cancer and other diseases??? JOIN TEAM TSF

02-10-2008, 09:40 PM	#12 (permalink)
Vandal63 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Salem, OR Posts: 39 OS: Windows Vista 32	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! I do have that done. I think I fixed mine though. At least with my motherboard some of the EVGA forums said you just need to FLASH/and update to the latest BIOS for your board. Mine is the eVGA 680i LT SLI. I did so and all appears to be working great. Many resets later it is still doing just fine. I think I got mine tackled. You might give it a try check you manufacturers web site a BIOS update. Lemme know if you need any help. Good Luck. Vandal63

02-10-2008, 11:22 PM	#13 (permalink)
the_slayer Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 28 OS: Vista	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! im not using the IDE connector on mine... and i have the latest BIOS... i have read of some others with my mobo having the same issue... good to hear you got it sorted though :)

02-12-2008, 11:23 PM	#14 (permalink)
the_slayer Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 28 OS: Vista	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! okay... well i tried the IDE time thing... set it to 0 and that didnt make any difference... i had it happen again the other day after making a change to the registry (disabled IPv6) and then on reboot it happened again... i even had the bootlog on this time but to my dissappointment it told me nothing... same log as it always records... someone else suggested my PSU might be the cause??? quote: My guess would be the power supply. I didn't find the FSP 500W Blue Storm specs to be overly impressive. 15A MAX on the +12v1 and +12v2 rails. If the power supply is wired to ATX specs the +12v2 should be dedicated to the processor which would only leave the +12v1 @ 15A max to supply all the other +12v needs. http://www.fspgroupusa.com/PC_RETAIL/AX500A/AX500A.html

02-14-2008, 04:07 PM	#15 (permalink)
the_slayer Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 28 OS: Vista	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! now i dont actually use RAID and i only have 1 HD but it has been suggested to me that my issue could be that i dont load any drivers in the beginning where in XP you have the option to hit F6 and in Vista when creating the partitions there is a "load driver" button... could this be the case? all though the asus website doesnt actually have a driver for HD operation...?

02-14-2008, 04:59 PM	#16 (permalink)
craigwatanabe Registered User Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 299 OS: xp	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! I recently completed a repair on a computer with similar problems, very intermittant. The culprit was a defective zip drive (yeah old tech). The BIOS would detect it and it would occasionally boot to the desktop but then sometimes it wouldn't. Same as you it would hang between POST and the Windows welcome screen. As others have suggested your BIOS is looking for IDE and SATA drives. If any of your drives are defective it will hang like that. In your case unplug all drives except the hard drive, enter the BIOS set up and deselect "Enable Floppy boot up" and set the first Boot device to HDD. Also disable anything that says, "enable any other boot device". This forces the BIOS to detect the HDD first and nothing else. With all other drives unplugged reboot the system and see if it boots up. Sometimes some BIOS' will detect a boot configuration change and will ask you to enter the Setup menu. Just enter it and save and exit and reboot. If this works you have a faulty optical or floppy drive or possibly a defective IDE ribbon cable. These cables do go bad after a period of time and on every rebuild or repair I always replace them with new ones as bad cables can cause the BIOS to react differently. __________________ A computer is only as powerful as it's user so build wisely.

02-14-2008, 08:38 PM	#17 (permalink)
the_slayer Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 28 OS: Vista	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! hmmm... well the first time i went to install Vista i booted from the cd and towards the end of the grey bar it came up with an error 0xc00000e9 and said something about possible fault with I/O device such as usb or optical... im pretty sure its not the SATA cables (no IDE) as i have already tried replacing them and still had the issue... could anything go wrong with the power cable from the PSU that is plugged into say my dvd drive that could cause this kind of issue? all usb stuff is disconnected... its not that... the dvd drive is a possibility... but the problem is it can go for like a week without showing the problem! how do i tell the place i got it there is a problem and then they check it and it works fine? if thats what it is of course... note most of the time it happens is after system file changes... eg. when i modified the registry (disabling IPv6)... or when installing some drivers... so could this still make the DVD drive not get found correctly on start???

02-17-2008, 12:45 AM	#18 (permalink)
the_slayer Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 28 OS: Vista	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! most of the time it happens is after system file changes... eg. when i modified the registry (disabling IPv6)... or when installing some drivers... so could this still make the DVD drive not get found correctly on start???

03-05-2008, 04:45 PM	#19 (permalink)
the_slayer Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 28 OS: Vista	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! hi... well i still havent been able to figure this out... tried a few things but it still happens occasinally... it just did it to me then and in the Event Viewer other then under "information" there is 1 instance under "Warning" and 2 instances under "Audit Failure". I will list the details below... does this mean anything to anyone and could reflect the problem im having? WARNING: Windows Defender Real-Time Protection agent has detected changes. Microsoft recommends you analyze the software that made these changes for potential risks. You can use information about how these programs operate to choose whether to allow them to run or remove them from your computer. Allow changes only if you trust the program or the software publisher. Windows Defender can't undo changes that you allow. For more information please see the following: Not Applicable Scan ID: {366BB672-0B1B-46D3-9168-3E7F7E80E661} User: aaron-PC\aaron Name: Unknown ID: Severity ID: Category ID: Path Found: regkey:HKCU@S-1-5-21-3470190438-1243519147-2628577789-1000\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt\Add to Anti-Banner;iemenuext:HKCU@S-1-5-21-3470190438-1243519147-2628577789-1000\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt\Add to Anti-Banner;file:C:\Program Files\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0\ie_banner_deny.htm Alert Type: Unclassified software Detection Type: AUDIT FAILURE: 1. Code integrity determined that the image hash of a file is not valid. The file could be corrupt due to unauthorized modification or the invalid hash could indicate a potential disk device error. File Name: \Device\HarddiskVolume1\PROGRA~1\KASPER~2\KASPER~1.0\adialhk.dll 2. Code integrity determined that the image hash of a file is not valid. The file could be corrupt due to unauthorized modification or the invalid hash could indicate a potential disk device error. File Name: \Device\HarddiskVolume1\PROGRA~1\KASPER~2\KASPER~1.0\r3hook.dll

03-10-2008, 02:51 PM	#20 (permalink)
craigwatanabe Registered User Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 299 OS: xp	Re: Long pause between POST and Loading screen! Sounds like a defective DVD-ROM drive. My wife just got a Lenovo Think Centre desktop for work and her DVD-RAM drive was defective right out of the box. __________________ A computer is only as powerful as it's user so build wisely.